Financial fitness fair coming to Hopedale on Friday

Alison Bosma abosma@wickedlocal.com @AlisonBosma

Tuesday

Dec 4, 2018 at 1:00 AM

“A lot of the people go into debt a lot, because ... coming out of college they think they can buy a regular size house and” anything else they want, Siefring remembered, of students’ results. “What they come to realize is it’s not usually how it works.”

HOPEDALE – Junior and senior high school students in Hopedale will spend a few hours Friday as their 20-something selves, in a hands-on finance lesson.

“A lot of the teachers in the school said they wish they had this in high school,” student organizer Robert Siefring said of the four-hour annual exercise called the FinFit – short for financial fitness – Fair.

Armed with spending worksheets and the estimated salaries for their dream jobs, students will set off to handle expected expenses for the year.

“We have booths set up throughout the gym that have real life things they have to do and pay for,” Siefring said.

That includes student loans, insurance, groceries, a car, and even a home mortgage.

“It was useful, just because in high school you don’t really think about the stuff you have to pay for in the future,” Siefring said, remembering going through the fair himself last year. “You come to realize how much stuff will actually cost you in the real world.”

The fair began in about 2015, Siefring said, as a project for the school’s DECA club. DECA used to stand for Distributive Education Clubs of America, and is a national non-profit organization that focuses on creating leaders.

Since then, he said, the event has grown. Siefring and two of his fellow senior classmates – Matt Crepeau and Lucia Rolo – organized this year's fair.

Friday’s FinFit Fair will feature speaker state Sen. Ryan Fattman and District Attorney Joseph Early, in addition to the handful of local business people asked to volunteer to run booths.

The trio has also been running financial literacy advisory sessions, miniature finance lessons focused on a variety of topics. Students learn everything from what to wear to an interview and to different types of jobs, to how to fill out tax forms or job applications.

Siefring remembered last year students being struck by what they could actually afford.

“A lot of the people go into debt a lot, because ... coming out of college they think they can buy a regular size house and” anything else they want, he recalled of students’ simulated results. “What they come to realize is it’s not usually how it works.”

About 150 juniors and seniors are expected to attend Friday’s fair, which will be held from 8 a.m. to noon – during school.

Learn more about the fair at https://finfit4life.com/.

Alison Bosma can be reached at 508-634-7582 or abosma@wickedlocal.com. Find her on Twitter at @AlisonBosma.